Dear Chipmunk: Welcome to Bloggy Land

(I’m taking a break from my ranting for a sec. Just needed a little recharge before I went back, ya know?)

Dear Chipmunk,

I don’t write about you enough on this blog. See, your sister is mercurial and talks a lot more than you (you’re catching up on that), and your brother has Down syndrome. Not that Down syndrome means so much in our daily lives, but I spend a lot of time thinking about it, thinking about the world’s ideas on it, thinking about how to foster change… just a lot of thinking.

You? You don’t leave a ton to ponder because you don’t seem like a ponderin’ kinda gal. You don’t hide feelings, either. When you’re mad, you’re mad. Like telling Kim Jong-un that North Korea is a sad impotent state with real military capability. Hoppin’ freakin’ mad. When you are happy, it is like looking at someone who just smoked a joint and is sitting down for a double feature of The Big Lebowski and Friday, with a pint of ice cream in your lap. Haaaaappy.

You don’t fester, you hold no grudges. You are very forgiving, especially of yourself. Poop your pants at the doctor’s office where Mommy has no change of clothes? ‘Skay, mama. I do better next time, wight? Sigh. Sure, sweetie, don’t fret at all. It isn’t as if I mind carrying you out of the office with no pants on while people give me dirty stares. No biggie.

You’re amazingly self-sufficient, which I attribute to our utter neglect of you as the middle child. You’re two-and-a-half years old and you can do more than I could do at eighteen years old. (I realize that this really calls into question my maturity back then, I allow such questioning, because I’m honestly not clear on how I left home without inadvertently killing myself.)

I’m also often in awe of your confidence. Even at this young age, I can see that. You don’t give a rat’s behind what other people think. You’ll walk up to strangers and ask them for half the cookie they’re eating. Somehow, you end up charming the pants off these people and you get the entire cookie. As someone who is fairly introverted as well as shy, this blows my mind. Please hone this skill in adulthood and charm someone out of enough money for your father and I to use for retirement. Just kidding. (But not actually. Damn your corrupting power, capitalism!)

Despite all that confidence you are also a big weenie inside, and this perplexes me. You’re terrified of all living creatures. Spiders, dogs, flies, butterflies, hummingbirds, cats, roly poly bugs, it does not matter. Anything with eyes and a body that isn’t human freaks you the eff out. And the feelings. Jeez. Any hint of someone reprimanding you, and you’re a puddle of tears. (You’ve also got that amazing tear fountain ability that your sister has. Like anime cartoons, the tears actually spring from your eyes.) I’m not sure if this puddle of tears business is a big sham, or what. Like I will not be at all surprised when whatever poor romantic interest you bring home is completely conquered by the threat of making you cry. You even make me feeling guilty, as if asking you to stop drawing all over the house with a sharpie, or suggesting you shouldn’t ride your brother like a horse is simply crushing your young spirit. How do you do that?

You know what I love, though? How much you love your brother. Not that you don’t love Mouse as well, but that relationship is already a little complicated, you know? Your brother, well, that is a lot simpler. Get in his face, yell his name fifty times, give him unwelcome hugs until he starts crying from lack of oxygen. Real, deadly, love, I tell you.

So, sorry about the under-representation. You should be more present in my wee corner of bloggyworld. I don’t want to stick you in the middle child box. You’re just my child, you know? My stoned, North Korean dictator, lover child.

Love her. Maybe she can be the secret weapon comic relief used sparingly in blogdome, your excuse for middle child syndrome. But with that much gusto she will not be left out, no need to think twice now about the cute chipmunks…